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While live streaming technology is accessible to everybody these days and the world has become more connected than ever. The possibilities offered by green screen have become much more relevant!

Green screen and Covid

The restrictions imposed by Covid have led to an increase in the popularity of using green screen techniques. The possibilities are seemingly endless and it can save huge costs constructing sets and transporting crews around the world.

Corporate communications benefit greatly from green screen solutions. When shooting in multiple locations and using multiple crews you’re sill maintaining consistency in look.

Green screen is easy to implement and very affordable. Ranging from portable solutions which can be installed in any home, office or exterior location to full blown green screen studios.

Take a look at this classic example – the Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey interview – and convince yourself!

The television industry, like all businesses around the world, is seriously affected by the coronavirus.

Produers please keep in mind that we can provide local crews, support staff including highly capable field producers and directors for TV, documentary and corporate shoots to get your project done without having to travel to Germany and Europe!

Furthermore we are equipped to provide webcast & livestreaming services to enable you to continue business remotely. Not only can we stream our event but our webcast platform let’s you interact live with all participants – it’s easy, effective and affordable.

Virtual events will keep you in business in these difficult times. Our crews are standing by in Germany and throughout Europe! In addition to that we still provide editing services, autocue operators and the full range of our production services!

Contact us now for a quote and we’ll stream your event faster than you can say Jack Robinson! 😉

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Our US camera crew is shooting in the picturesque city of Münster all week!

Photo: Presseamt Stadt Münster

This year has been an exciting one full of interesting shoots! Thank you all for making 2019 such an enjoyable, memorable and highly successful year!

Every two years the Frankfurt Motor Show is keeping us busy with plenty of camera crews roaming around the fairgrounds.

The Frankfurt Motor Show (IAA )is one of the largest trade fairs and we shot for some major car brands!

One one of our recent high end corporate shoots we used our Panaura Octodome again. It is a great light source, which is powerful and soft and gives a very pleasing circular reflection in the eyes.

It’s not always convenient to use it because of its size but when there’s room it’s well worth going for it. We shot interviews and testimonials in Walldorf near Frankfurt for an ongoing corporate project with two Sony FS7 crews including the handy and versatile Ronin S with a Fuji DSLR for plenty of smooth moves.

Our clients were more than pleased with the footage and we thank our camera crews for doing such a great job!

…a very stylised, funky designer led film set in Frankfurt!

We’ve just completed shooting a funky commercial in a new, modern, fun loving hotel downtown Frankfurt. It was a major logistical challenge preparing and implementing the shoot due to the unusual and ever changing requirements.

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360° filming is a complex affair and needs careful planning, camera placement, lighting and talent rehearsals. It is is typically recorded with a multiple camera rig or a dedicated camera that includes multiple lenses embedded into the camera. During post production the recorded footage is merged into one spherical video through a method called stitching. The colour and contrast of each shot has to be calibrated and synched with the others. The result is an impressive video similar to virtual reality set ups.

One of our favourite DOPs, Harald Capota, has recently completed several projects with some beautiful and astonishing imagery for Germany’s mega broadcaster ZDF. He gave us some insight into this project by answering a few questions on 360 degree filming.

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After a fairly slow moving July when most people are on holiday things started hotting up mid August with a wide range of shoots throughout Europe.

We crewed and shot a wealth of corporate films and documentaries with small crews, like fixers, drivers and PAs to full blown production crews with all the bells and whistles: production managers, DOPs, additional camera operators, sound recordists, DIT experts, make up artists, gaffers, grips, set designers, translators, autocue operators, photographers and trucks full of state of the art camera kit!

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We’ve just completed an exciting shoot at Germany’s famous Hockenheim race track near Frankfurt. Our UK clients came at short notice requesting crew and kit for this unusual car racing shoot.

Being as we only had a couple of days prep we were scrambling to get exactly the right crew members with the appropriate skills. We ended up providing a top crew all ex Frankfurt with the necessary experience and knowledge for specialised car shoots.

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Since our last blog we’ve had a wide variety of shoots, and both our corporate and broadcast clients have kept us on our toes.

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We recently got a request to provide a support crew and kit for a UK company who are producing a clip for Google which explains how YouTube can be a valuable educational tool.

Supporters’ flag of FC St. Pauli by VEO15

We just happened across this amusing clip about Quentin Tarantino’s favourite clapper/loader, camera angel Geraldine Brezca. Enjoy! 🙂

We enjoy an ongoing relationship producing webcasts for the American communications giant AT&T. This time we were in the picturesque and historical city of Brno in the Czech Republic.

Setting up webcasts abroad is always full of surprises and challenges, particularly when you are dealing with people from a different culture speaking an unknown language. Our core technical team, consisting of cameramen, vision mixer, sound recordist, technical assistants and all the necessary kit came from Berlin, the production crew from Texas. Communicating in English and German works very well but in the Czech Republic the major foreign language is Russian.

However, with a little practice, language barriers can be overcome using hand signals and body language. We even managed to hire some additional technical equipment from a Brno based AV specialist using hands and feet to explain our needs and hard cash to clinch the deal.

As in so many areas of professional film production it’s expected we command the highest levels of technical expertise, creativity, friendliness and reliability. In order to complete the picture though the ability to think on your feet, trouble shoot and improvise are paramount.

After weeks of planning and preparations we transformed the Brno AT&T facility into an attractive „Town Hall“ venue and the live stream reached a large international audience without a glitch. Key speakers reached out to the AT&T workforce with a variety of presentations and individual awards. To round it all off a traditional Czech folk music trio performed rousing and colorful dance acts.

A few weeks ago we were approached by PBS Chicago to provide a support crew for their upcoming shoot in Europe. They we planning to shoot a story about the renowned architects Nada and Marc Breitman – living and working in Paris and Amsterdam. We were more than happy to offer our production services. We supplied PBS with a sound recordist, fixer, driver and gaffer with a ton of lights 🙂 They were happy to have local support in both locations!

Watch the full show here.

Image: screenshot © PBS / Talk of the Town

Last week, Bloomberg TV requested their favourite cameraman from Frankfurt to fly to Riga for an important financial conference. It was all done last minute – but our camera operator was available and up for it! He didn’t only do a great job filming conferences and interviews but also got a day’s worth of sightseeing out of it! 🙂

On of our many US based pharma clients requested three FS7 camera crews for a drug launch event in Düsseldorf. In addition he needed an autocue with operator and a photographer to take stills.

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It’s the same old story which I’m sure many of our colleagues can identify with.

Camera Crew Germany is a dedicated camera crewing and production services company and we are coordinating camera crews all over Europe on a daily basis. It’s a time intensive process and things like social media get left behind in favour of more pressing issues…

However, we all know that blogging and social media updates have to be done, unfortunately ours isn’t a daily update and becomes kind of general with many shoots covered in one article as below.

Since our last update about our snowed in crew in Switzerland and our legal videographer in Amsterdam we’ve been travelling to drier locations throughout the land and beyond.

Discovery Canada got us to interview a Munich based expert whose agenda was glowing chameleons. We knew chameleons changed colour to adapt to their surroundings, but who knew they glowed in UV light?! We then covered another shoot for them in Amsterdam, one of our Swiss clients had us filming an operation in Berlin, Bloomberg had us shooting financial news in and around Frankfurt, DHL kept us busy with corporate interviews in Bonn, one of our regular London based clients had us shooting corporate footage in Frankfurt and last but not least we had a large pharmaceutical shoot in London.

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Bloomberg TV is keeping us on our toes again for a shoot in Munich last week. They requested their favourite cameraman from Frankfurt to travel to Bavaria to interview the Telekom CEO at the “Digital Live Design Conference”. We shot on the ever so popular Sony PMW200 and used the very handy Live Unit for streaming.

 

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Before the holiday season comes to an end we would like to extend our warmest wishes and heartfelt thanks to you, our clients, our colleagues and our friends for making 2017 such a spectacular year for us at CCG.

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We regularly have camera crews shooting for Bloomberg at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt and LiveU makes live broadcasting so easy, versatile and cost effective.

The History Channel requested we use the amazing Lensbaby and Dji Osmo to enhance imagery on our recent shoot in the Netherlands entitled “Return to the Moon”. The programme is exploring the very real prospects of colonising the Moon. We interviewed various experts from the ESA (European Space Agency).

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We’ve been pretty busy lately crewing up various shoots and providing production services up and down the country.

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We’re always pleased when we receive client feedback, particularly when its good:)) Our Amsterdam Camera Crew received the following from one our USA clients:
“We have received such positive feedback and I just want to extend a special thanks to you and your crews. Four two-camera shoots in three countries, interviews ranging from 20-70 minutes individually, text graphics created, edited to under 5 min and launched today. It was a great team effort and I just wanted to recognize your energy and talents. We couldn’t have pulled it off without you.”

There were times when filming corporate interviews in front of green screen was the order of the day. It was mainly driven by the fact that we would often have to film interviews in horribly empty, soulless offices or board rooms.

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We regularly shoot corporate films for DHL in Bonn. Our trusted crews always come from nearby Cologne shooting on the ever so popular Sony FS7.

We often get requests to shoot b-roll in all major cities of Germany, such as Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt or Hamburg. This time a US based client requested we shoot b-roll and time lapse videos of various sights in Berlin. Our crew shot on the Sony FS7, the Sony a7s and the Panasonic GH5.

After weeks of preparation, finding locations, organising shoot permits, blocking off roads, gathering a small army of extras and providing support equipment and manpower, we finally got round to shooting part of an international thriller at some exciting locations downtown Frankfurt. We were proud to play host to our guests from Copenhagen and wish them every success with the rest of the shoot!

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A US-based agency requested a DOP and soundman with Sony FS7 kit in Jülich, near Cologne, recently. They shot high end footage as well as interviews at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre including their server and research rooms.

Last week a client requested our services in Frankfurt to film timelapse footage of prominent buildings and sights around town. We shot some high-end 4K with our Sony FS7, Sony a7s various, strategically placed gopros 🙂

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We recently provided multi camera, streaming and webcast facilities for a new California based client at an event in Munich. A totally different ball game from regular corporate and documentary shoots. Needless to say when you’re streaming all depends on a reliable and stable upload connection which can sometimes be tricky at remote locations. However, our end client was IBM and they made sure that the streaming connection was top notch.

 

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